You Just Can't Stay Higher Than the Stars
by sequestial
Summary: You couldn't believe it, they brought their heavy words down like a hammer and beat your heart to life. You were never the same again. –– The days and years spent in the shadow of the aftermath. Part two out of a possible five. Regulus-centric.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: You Just Can't Stay Higher Than the Stars  
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**Fandom: HP, Deathly Hallow spoilers**

**Length: 516 words, [1/possible 5]**

**Disclaimer: Don't own HP universe-slash-characters. This is merely mental exercise.**

**Notes: First chapter's pretty short. I don't know how long this fic will pan out, possibly five chapters. I just needed to get it out: we'll see where and how it goes.**

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_14._

(On how to deal with last rebellions and the social fallout of the prodigal son: nothing. Pretend nothing happened and you won't have to deal with it. Life goes on.)

They're lying on his bed, still young enough to sneak away from the dizzy whirling parties downstairs but old enough to know better. Her golden hair spread out on evergreen covers in a rich display of autumnal offing, the crisp white pillows strewn haphazardly around like starched clouds or snow; this stark contrast between seasons, the sharp either-or between the name Black and the pureness they still radiate.

He's speaking with words that become increasingly halting, a sort of external display of the turmoil he surely must be feeling inside, he surely cannot explain. "Maybe I should have seen this coming. I guess it was always bound to happen, but you know that feeling, where… Where you can see it so clearly, but, but you just stand back and- But I just don't- Do you think he… blamed… do you think he blamed me when he ran away? But… but who's to say- Who's to say that we're to blame? Cissy, what kind of world is this, anyway?"

(What kind of world is this, where brother is pitted against brother, and only one can be right and the other must be wrong? Do we keep believing in it, or is there a final judgment to tell us that both can be grey, and neither must be black nor white? What kind of world is this, where to not question its rules only brings out the doubts within us?)

She's not looking at him and her eyes are closed. Maybe she's thinking about a sister she is no longer allowed to claim as her own, or maybe she's thinking about what the future holds, all the ethereal dress robes floating and light like faery dust, and the golden threads interwoven between all the lives they're still allowed to acknowledge the existence of, all the golden threads delicate and intricate on expensive clothes and rising up like steam from elf-made champagne and settling on the shoulders of a certain Lucius Malfoy who produces strange and beating emotions in her, rising unbearably in her chest, emotions she's never experienced and cannot explain.

But then she opens her eyes and stares at her little cousin and suddenly the future is so very far away and the dirt of the past smothers them both. The party downstairs is loud with a falsitude only the very rich can produce. The rich and Most Ancient and Noble House of-

She smiles tremulously. Her eyes are painfully bright.

"Reggie," she whispers, "Reggie, it's not your fault."

For a long time he doesn't answer. Then he says, very quietly so that she has to strain to hear, and even then, even now, she has no way of knowing how much she heard correctly. "But someone has to take the fall. Sanctuary."

(Or perhaps he said: "It's everybody's fault. Because we're family." They're complicated creatures, and they all have different ways of dealing with things.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: You Just Can't Stay Higher Than the Stars  
**

**Fandom: HP, DH spoilers**

**Length: 1,256 words, [2/possible 5]**

**Disclaimer: I want some money, dammit!  
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**Notes: So the second chapter's longer? This was originally saves onto my hard-drive, but my house got burgled, so things got screwed up pretty fast. Although, that was _ages_ ago, so I guess I'm just a procrastinator with no excuses and no muse. I'm blaming the lateness on my lack of creativity and imagination.**

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**_14 (again)_

_He's riding in a compartment with a few of his friends, and the truth is that everyone knows but they would all just rather keep quiet and pretend not to. It all works out better this way, but one can only go on for so long talking about trivial matters like last summer's scandal between England's Chaser Waugh and Romania's Keeper Gorbachev. He doesn't really know. Everything, what's it all about, anyway? He doesn't really like playing Seeker, but he's been constantly told by his parents, ever since the not-to-be-mentioned-ever-again Sorting of their eldest son, that he's the heir, the only one, and it's a waste that he wasn't born the soonest because then he would have set the greatest example any Black could have ever set. It's not really the point, this line of thinking; that he knows. It's just that his life has always been this game of seeking and he's never been especially good at it, but he's good at making it look like he can do it, that he can win. That he can take one for the team. Or family. Same difference, really._

_It's just that he's waited his whole life for the flash of gold, and even though it's there and technically he's found it, it never _really_ comes to him. It's not there to be sought, and thus he hasn't really found it. Not really. _

_Not ever._

"Hey, hey Black!" And instantly he is brought back to the land of the living. He wonders how long he'll stay this time, for how long he'll evade sleep. Because, see, he's got it all sorted out now. He's got the perfect escape plan. One that never ends.

Nobody dares speak to him, but Celia Macnair – who incidentally was the one who called him awake, and isn't that _interesting_? Because she's a grade younger and even though they're in the same House, they've never so much as crossed paths and their exchanges are polite and stilted because Slytherin's full of backstabbers and liars and insincerity even though they show House solidarity on the outside, and, and, _it's exactly like his family_ – looks at him in the eye and asks him how his summer's been.

Whilst most boys would be distracted by her pretty smile and even teeth, he's startled to notice perhaps for the first time that her eyes are exactly like Narcissa's. "Fine," he mumbles, "just fine."

Her gaze is skeptical. "Right." Then, in a gesture that surprises him, she links her arm with his and everyone is astonished by this scene of uncommon familiarity. "Then let's just hurry up to the carriages, shall we?"

The normality: it's like a dream. He'd thought that after everything that's happened, he'd thought the things could only get worse.

_They are walking in the dimming light. The bruised sky and the dark outlines of faraway spires and towers. Towers of stone, generations of wizards and witches, and each worse than the preceding one. Towers of stone, stones like their hearts. The carriages are half-floating, and the sun is saying goodbye, surrounded by a green haze as its dying golden radiance blurs messily with the remaining dark suffocated blue sky. He is turning a corner and opening one of the carriage doors when he almost trips and comes face to face with eyes._

_White eyes. Blank eyes. Eyes like the moon but even more barren and hopeless._

_And its leathery face. Its-_

"_Shove it, Reg."_

_He whips around and his heart jolts and his face is pure joy, and _maybe everything will be forgiven_, but it's just some random kid. Some Hufflepuff, or Ravenclaw, but not a student with a red-gold crest, some random with his brother, and he berates himself, because, really, Sirius hasn't called him 'Reg' since they were too young to remember. And, really it's fine, because his face was half-hidden by the shadows, and he's a Black, _he's a Black_, and Blacks don't show emotion unless it's with family, and Sirius is no longer family._

_When he turns back around, his friends are getting impatient, he doesn't see the Thestral anymore, but by now he's gotten other things on his mind and he's already forgotten._

He's wrong, you know? Things _can_ only get worse, because what's not forgotten cannot be forgiven, and he's never stared death in the face, so the Thestral's a bit of a mystery.

He's still too young, of course.


End file.
